New chicane could lead to costly mistakes - Button

After a four-week break following the flyaway races, the Formula One teams return to Europe and look forward to the challenge of the more traditional circuits on the calendar. The Circuit de Catalunya is familiar to the Honda Racing F1 Team as a regular testing venue and hosted the four-day test this week as the Honda team prepared for the event.

"The fact that we test here so much makes the Grand Prix weekend feel very familiar and of course we know the track inside out,” confirms Jenson Button. “The key to a really quick lap at the Circuit de Catalunya is having a car with good downforce; you need to feel confident when you commit to the very high speed corners. Overtaking can be a real challenge here and one of the best opportunities is going into the first corner after the start. You can squeeze by there once the race has settled down but it is very difficult. The new chicane can also be tricky as it is extremely slippery and so very slow. One little mistake could cost you a lot of time there. It’s also slowed the approach to the old final corner which was a great challenge.”